Defamation (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages
Seanad Éireann — 2026-01-21
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Rónán Mullen (IND), National University of Ireland

I appreciate the comprehensive and fluent nature of the Minister’s response. Everyone here understands that the meaning of something being in the public interest is not the same thing at all as something being of interest to the public. Do we rely on the courts? How can we be sure about the threshold that has to be met for something to be deemed to be in the public interest? We live in times where there is so much said in so many forums about all sorts of issues. Often, disproportionate time and attention are given to issues that are not necessarily that important. What assurances can the Minister give us about how the question of whether something is in the public interest is determined?
I wish to go back to the question of whether a person is entitled to withhold comment. For example, I am a person and I have something put to me that I know is false. We are all aware of that old line from whichever university president who said, “Let's make the [b--] deny it.” I refer to an allegation that everyone knows to be false. In the criminal context, a person has the right to silence. There can be good reasons someone does not want to dignify a false allegation and participate in the process of falsifying it. Even to falsify something or state that it is false can, in the view of someone about whom something false is being said, contribute to the possibility of it being published and so on. Where does that concern stand in the light of the Minister’s response to the proposed amendment?

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-01-21/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:31+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-21